• Bavarian leader Markus Soder believes that consistent deportations and successful economic policy are key to combatting the rise of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD).
• Soder emphasizes the importance of returning individuals without a residence permit to their country of origin to address the issue of those who do not have the right to stay in Germany.
• The premier of Bavaria also highlights the necessity of completing ongoing reforms to make Germany competitive again and prevent individuals from making radical decisions due to lack of future prospects, such as job cuts in the automotive industry.

The high approval ratings for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party are partly due to what Bavarian conservative leader Markus Söder sees as insufficiently consistent deportations.

Söder, who is also premier of the southern state of Bavaria, said in the summer interview on public broadcaster ARD that while fewer people had been coming to Germany, "there are still very many here who have no right of residence."

Anyone without a residence permit must be returned to their country of origin. "We are doing this in Germany now very, very strongly," Söder said.

To combat the AfD, successful economic policy was also needed, he said. "And that is why it is so urgently necessary that many of the reforms now being tackled are also brought to completion - because they will ultimately make our country competitive again."

If car plants were closed, for example, "then the path of a person who no longer sees a future for themselves towards a radical decision becomes very easy indeed," the leader of the Bavaria-only Christian Social Union (CSU) party said, in an apparent reference to the announcement of many job cuts by the leading players in Germany's once mighty automotive industry.